Opinion: Chinese Media Should not Mislead Public on Foreign Affairs

Editor's note: Judging from the comments from last week's "First Impressions" articles (part one and part two), many readers were a bit shocked by the negative sentiments expressed by Chinese netizens regarding their impressions of foreign countries. A few comments stated that eChinacities should not publish such nationalist drivel; yet it's the purpose of the China Media article section to show you what is being said in China – not overly-sugar coat it, or only publish stories from pro-Western sources (although we do publish those too). Well today is a special treat then, as an Op-Ed writer named Lao Mu (劳木) for Global Times (Chinese edition) – the same media source that published the above-mentioned much-lambasted survey – recently published their own criticism of Chinese media, and how negative reporting is only fuelling China's worrisome "angry youth / fènqīng" (愤青) movement.

Photo: sina

330,000 Chinese netizens recently participated in a survey on first impressions of foreign countries on huanqiu.com, the Chinese edition of the Global Times newspaper, which should have been a friendly and fun affair. However, excuse me (Lao Mu) for speaking so bluntly, but judging from the voting results, it's clear that netizens' impressions of foreign countries are excessively negative, that any feelings of friendship are grossly outweighed by this negativity and that netizens' impressions of foreign countries are quite far removed from the way the real world operates.

To illustrate this problem, let's first recap the voting results for netizens' first impressions of the top five "world powers":

The United States: Hegemon, Powerful, Arrogance, War, Greedy
Japan: Anti-Chinese, Perverted, Militarism, the Yasukuni Shrine, Hypocrisy
Russia: Tough, Military Power, Vast Territory with Abundant Resources, Kremlin, Beauties
India: Supports Tibetan Separatism, Arrogant, Anti-China, Slums, Territorial Dispute
Britain: Decline, Colonizer, Gentleman, Hypocritical, Conservative

And here are the voting results (not listed in previous article) for China's neighbouring countries:

South Korea: Historical Plagiarism, Arrogant, Plastic Surgery, Petty, Kim-Chi
Philippines: Maids, Occupy the South China Sea, Anti-Chinese, Hong Kong Hostage Incident, Bully People by Flaunting Powerful Connections
North Korea: Poverty, "Resist America, Support Korea" (mantra from 1950), Backward, Closed, Mysterious
Pakistan: Close Friend, Older Brother, Kashmir, Indo-Pakistani War, Anti-Terrorism

One could argue that these voting results more or less accurately reflect the mass opinion and mentality of many Chinese toward foreign countries. Suffice it to say, it's a bit worrisome to think that China's future leaders could hold such negative impressions of foreign countries, as these impressions would no doubt influence the way that China's foreign policy will be conducted. Granted, the above describe situation stems from both external causes and internal causes. With regard to the internal causes, the negative disposition characteristic to a number of Chinese media news reports in recent years is largely responsible.

Following the Reform and Opening of China in 1978, a series of new diplomatic strategies were put forward:

-Have many friends, don't make enemies
-Don't draw ideological lines
-Don't look to what other countries' are saying; judge according to whether the matter is right or wrong, and then make your own decision
-Keep a low profile and do your job
-Seek mutual interests with Western countries

And while the international news reporting is quite different from official foreign diplomacy, these same principles do generally apply to both. For quite a long time, China's international news reporting has often placed emphasis on developed countries' advanced technologies, management experience, business culture etc. As for developing countries, the principle guidelines for reporting have been "only report the good, hold back the bad", don't talk down about them, don't expose their shortcomings etc. In such situations where it was necessary to mention their difficulties, reporters were instructed to also address them using a sympathetic, kind-hearted manner. As it turns out, this style of international reporting – with Chinese characteristics – has been quite effective in practice. However, in recent years, more and more biases toward foreign countries have been cropping up in Chinese media's reporting of international affairs. Below are five causes of such biases:

1) Over-generalising; jumping to conclusions
Years ago, a major Chinese newspaper published a story entitled "Eight shootings in one day in Washington DC" (华盛顿一天8次枪击战), which lead other newspapers to conclude in their own related articles that: Washington DC was the capital of death (华盛顿是死亡之都). From this overgeneralisation, uninformed readers no doubt imagined that all Washington DC residents live under a constant hail of bullets.

At the time, I (Lao Mu) was actually in Washington DC, and while the story is factual, it occurred somewhere in the area's slums, where shootings are a relatively common occurrence.  However, as most residents will tell you, the city as a whole is generally safe, quiet and quite liveable. In the case of this story, it's clear that a "partial truth" is not equal to a "whole truth". Yet, in the news reports being published today, such "over-generalisations" and "jumping to conclusions" still abound.

2) Blindly reprinting "negative China" reports by any foreign media source
The correct approach for reporting China-related news stories published by the foreign media would be to first determine where the story originated: Is it an official government policy or is it the opinion of a few politicians? Is it from the mainstream media, or is it from some small media website? Does it represent widespread public opinion, or is it the feelings of a few angry people? Only by making such differentiations can Chinese media separate which stories are important to re-report and which stories should be "scoffed at" and ultimately ignored".

However, as is common practice for much of the Chinese media, ratings come first, and what better way to drive up ratings than to indiscriminately brand some random foreigner's anti-Chinese sentiments as a "national consensus" and reporting it? In Chinese media, journalists don't just reprint the original statements; they often further exaggerate its contents and then publish it. Consciously or subconsciously, news reports on Western countries have taken on the following characteristic: positive developments are not newsworthy, while negative stories are media gold…and the nastier they are, the better.

3) Over sensitivity and overreaction
With China's rise over the past 30 years, foreign suspicion, envy, hostility and attempts to "contain" China have also markedly increased. These responses in turn have been a source of much indignation in Chinese media, which have often been overly sensitive toward these actions, while also overreacting by taking what are quite ordinary statements and interpreting them as "unfavourable or unfair to China", not hesitating at all to stir up the growing nationalist sentiments amongst the Chinese in the process.

For example, when certain countries conduct military exercises with each other, or certain countries' senior officials visit other countries, this is often just a "regular association" between two countries. Yet a good deal of Chinese media, following the tone of remarks made by Western media, will reach a much different conclusion, that these actions are "directed at China" or are "surrounding China". Of course, it's undeniable that some foreign joint-military exercises and senior officials visits are in fact directly against China, but not all of them.

Chinese media, in getting the audiences attention in such a way, may think that it's helping Chinese people to be on guard against any foreign threats. But actually, it just makes Chinese extremely paranoid, fretting over imaginary fears that China is surrounded by the enemies, that it has no friends, and that diplomatic relations are deteriorating.

4) Vulgarisation
Some Chinese media sources have entered themselves into a downward spiral of vulgarity. It's been said in jest that Chinese media has taken the classic "five Ws" of journalism – who, what, when, where, why (and how), and replaced it with its own "four Ws" – war, women, wampum (money), and wrongdoing.

5) Sensationalism
More worth mentioning here is that the biased reports in Chinese media have intensified the "angry youth / fènqīng" (愤青) movement in China (Lit: young Chinese with extreme nationalistic tendencies). This taste for fenqing has in turn encouraged Chinese media to further cater to this type of reporting, and this vicious circle of sensationalism/nationalism is undoubtedly damaging China's international image.

From this, the following two points have become evident:

-There is an increasing possibility that from this sensationalist reporting that foreigners will misread China's foreign policy, while also misunderstanding the hearts and minds of Chinese people, not to mention questioning their level of genuine cognitive awareness.

-It will likely cause negative repercussions, for the very simple reason that, if you repeatedly state that someone (or some country) is bad, they'll inevitably do the same to you, likely in greater escalation.

Source: opinion.huanqiu
 

Related links
Western vs. Chinese Media: A War of Words
War or Peace? Chinese Survey on Territorial Islands Dispute
5 Things the Foreign Media Gets Wrong About China